Q: READ Sir Patrick Moore has a minor planet named after him. Who decides this and who named our planet Earth? - W Sewell, Bishop Auckland.

A: AS most planets are discovered by astronomers, they tend to be named after their discoverer, although as more minor planets are discovered outside our solar system most will probably be numbered rather than named. This is certainly the case with stars. The precise meaning of the name Earth is lost, although it is of Germanic origin.

In ancient times, there was little recognition that the Earth was a planet in the same way as Venus and Mars. Planets were probably only identified as wandering stars. Indeed, the word planet means wanderer. And earth, in the Old Germanic languages, referred to land or soil.

This is why the name of earth, unlike other planets in our solar system, doesn't allude to a particular god. In earliest times, the visible planets in our solar system were Mars, Venus, Jupiter, Mercury and Saturn. These most visible planets were the first to be named and were associated with the movement of the ancient gods. Jupiter corresponds to the Greek god Zeus, Mars was the god of war and Venus the god of love.

One of the earliest references to the planet Saturn in English was in a work associated with Alfred the Great written in 888AD. This mentions Saturnes Stearra - Saturn's Star. But the origin of the name Saturn was rooted in Roman times when Saturnus was a god associated with agriculture. Chaucer, writing in 1386, mentions the presence of the planet Mercury in the constellation of Pisces.

The more recently-discovered planets in our solar system have kept the tradition of being named after classical gods. This precedent was set in 1781 after the English astonomer Herschel discovered a new planet which he called Georgium Sidus -the Georgian star. English astronomers preferred to call it Herschel, but on the continent astonomers adopted the name Uranus after a Greek god of the sky. This name was in universal use by 1822.

The next planet was not discovered until 1846 when Galle gave it the name Neptune after the god of the sea. Pluto was named after the god of the underworld after its discovery in 1930.

Q: RECENTLY read of the sinking of a Scottish pirate ship during the reign of Henry VIII by an English sea captain in an area called the Downs. I thought the Downs where chalky hills in the south of England. Where are the Downs in connection with the sea? - E Anderson, Houghton-le-Spring.

A: The Downs are a sheltered anchorage off eastern Kent between Deal and Goodwin Sands. They were often a site for naval battles and the incident you refer to occurred in 1511 and involved the murder of Andrew Barton, a favourite Scottish captain of King James V of Scotland. James's grievance at the murder was greeted with contempt by Henry VIII who claimed that kings did not concern themselves with the affairs of pirates. James was killed at the battle of Flodden in 1513 and, although this incident may have played its part in James's attack on England, it had more to do with Scotland's strong relationship with France, with whom Henry was at war.

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